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(CHES) Data
The CHES project randomly selected firms in twenty-seven Northern California counties for surveying about the benefits they offer workers. Firms offering medical benefits were asked about their health plans, the changes made to them in response to rising health care costs, and the composition of their workforce. Firms not offering medical benefits were asked about why they did not offer them, the impact of their firm of not making the offer, and the composition of their workforce.
Surveys were administered over the telephone to firms randomly selected from a Genesys data base (http://www.m-s-g.com/) listing of firms in each county. Survey methods were designed such that the proportion of completed surveys in each county was about 1.742 percent of firms with three or more employees operating in the county. Selection of firms within each county was stratified by number of employees in a firm to create a sample with half large firms (more than 50 employees).
Firms were screened prior to surveying to ensure they met the criteria for inclusion: location in one of the CHES counties, five or more employees, and for-profit or nonprofit enterprises. Surveying began in July 2005 and will ultimately be administered to 1,427 firms. Surveying was completed by December 2006 with a response rate of over 67 percent.
Counties were included in the sampling frame to provide a sample of Northern California counties that approximated the distribution of the population in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties in the United States, as defined by the 2003 U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural-Urban Continuum Codes ( http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/rurality/RuralUrbCon/priordescription.htm ). CHES counties contain 6.3 million individuals, 89.5 percent of whom reside in California’s metropolitan counties and 10.5 percent of whom reside in its nonmetropolitan counties.
A report detailing CHES surveying efforts is available in PDF at http://www.hire.csueastbay.edu/hire/discpap/abstracts/R07-01-01.pdf or from hire@csueastbay.edu by requesting HIRE Center Report R07-01-01.
Data collection was funded by:
- California Program on Access to Care (CPAC)
- W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
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